Six Months Later Part 6

"I want you t-t-to go."

Tears blur my vision, but I shake my head, feeling my chin tremble. "Maggie-"

"Just go, Chloe!"

And I do.

I fly down the stairs and right past her mom. I'm desperate to be out of this warm, familiar house and all of its memories. Away from Maggie's hard words and hate-filled eyes. Mrs. Campbell calls after me, but I ignore her. I fling the door wide, rushing into the cold darkness beyond it.

I thunder down their porch steps, wiping tears as I run for the sidewalk. Sobbing and half-blind, I run until I slam blindly into someone's back. Whoever he is, he's tall and broad and he barely shifts at the impact.

"What the h.e.l.l?" he says, and I leap back because I know that voice.

Adam turns around, shaking his hair out of his eyes and rubbing the back of his arm where I plowed into him. I stumble back in fear, and he catches me, fingers curling around my arms.

"G.o.d, Chlo, what is going on with you?"

I jerk myself free, feeling my eyes go wide. "How did you know I was here? Why are you following me?"

"Following you? I live here," Adam says, narrowing his eyes.

I shake my head, panting hard and feeling like a trapped animal. "No, you don't. I'd know if you lived here."

"You do know," he says, frowning. "I live in the apartments on the other side of the middle school."

He looks like this is all very obvious. But it's not. Nothing's obvious except that I'm crazy. I'm totally crazy and I'm not getting better.

I'm supposed to be better. I did everything they told me to do a year ago. I went to therapy, and I wrote insanely long journal entries. G.o.d, I even did yoga! And it had worked. Dr. Kirkpatrick had said my results were so good that I didn't have to come anymore.

And now this. How in the h.e.l.l am I going to fix this? When will she ever say I don't have to come again?

Pain rises up my chest, right into a little ball in my throat. Adam is just standing there, watching me closely while I choke all over my own breath.

I shake my head. "Stop looking at me like that!"

"Like what?"

"Like I'm supposed to know things I couldn't possibly know. Or like you know me, which you don't, okay? You don't know anything about me."

"Hey, hey," he says, dropping his backpack and rubbing his hands briskly up and down my arms. "Calm down. Just breathe."

I glance at Adam's hands on my arms. I don't have that feeling of someone invading my personal s.p.a.ce. Adam's touch feels good. No, it's better than good. His touch feels like home.

He steps in even closer and slides his hands down to the cuffs of my coat. He tells me again to breathe.

This time I listen. I inhale, long and deep. And something smells...familiar.

"I smell something," I say. Something sweet and spicy that p.r.i.c.kles at the back of my mind. I can almost remember it.

Adam laughs. "All right."

Just like that, I get it. This clean mix of soap and leather and cinnamon-it's him. This is Adam's smell. And it's curling in my mind like a memory.

"Just wait," I say, and for some crazy reason, I take his hand.

His skin is warm and rough, though it can't be thirty degrees out here. But he's not cold. His strong fingers wrap around mine without a bit of hesitation. This time, I don't think about how insane it is to touch him. All I can think about is that image I saw today. The one that sent me running to Maggie's house in the first place.

I close my eyes and grip Adam's hand tighter, trying to focus.

The picture forms in my mind again, and I exhale slowly, willing it to move.

Nothing.

"Chloe-"

"Please," I whisper. "Just give me a second."

He doesn't owe me a second, or anything else, and I feel my cheeks going hot. I know I'm being weird, but he sighs and stays still. His fingers go soft, sliding until they interlace with mine. Our palms close together, and I shiver though I don't feel cold at all.

And then I remember.

A cla.s.sroom. Study hall from last year, but it's nighttime. And the posters are different, so it's not last year. It's this year.

Adam's bent over a book. I can hear myself talking about something. Science, maybe. But Adam's ignoring me, his eyes scanning the pages.

"Ugh, I can't focus," I hear myself say. "I feel all jittery and distracted."

Adam doesn't look up when he speaks. "Why's that?"

"Do you really have to ask?"

He looks up like he doesn't trust me. Like maybe he's heard me wrong. But then he lets himself smile, just a little. I feel warm and bright to the point of bursting, like the sun is rising somewhere deep inside my chest.

"One of these days we're going to have to do something about that," he says.

I'm sure he's right.

It's over as soon as it starts. Back in the present, I'm cold and panting, standing on the sidewalk. Every part of me is shaking. I blink up at Adam, our hands still locked.

"I remember something," I say. "Something about you."

Adam's expression is so intense, I swear it could power small cities. I feel his gaze crackle through every cell in my body. I don't know if he's mad or happy, or maybe both of those things mixed up, but when he steps closer, I forget where I am. h.e.l.l, even who I am.

"I can't figure you out, Chloe," he says softly, shaking his head. He reaches up, fingering the tips of my hair. "I can't figure you out at all."

I feel the delicious weight of his hand on my face for one soul-blistering second. He lets me go and turns toward the sidewalk, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. I expect him to leave, but he doesn't.

"You coming?" he asks.

"What?"

"C'mon," he says, sounding half-distracted. As if he didn't just have his hand on my face and the promise of more in his eyes. "I'll walk you home."

Chapter Seven.

My parents look up from the news when I come in. Mom's been crying. Again. It's getting seriously melodramatic in this house. I'm half expecting a mournful instrumental score to play every time I leave a room.

Mom pushes on a bright smile, but this isn't my first rodeo. She cried every night for a week after I was diagnosed with panic attacks and anxiety. Now they don't even have a name for what I've got. Come to think of it, it's probably a miracle she's not in a padded cell rocking back and forth.

"Hey, you," she says, trying for brightness. She's a terrible actress. "Was Maggie ready to talk?"

"We talked for a minute."

"Well, baby steps are best," she says. "So how are..."

"How's the brain pan?" Dad asks, filling in her silence.

Mom kicks him under the coffee table. It's like I'm still six years old and won't notice. Maybe they'll start spelling the words they don't want to say in front of me.

"Fine," I say. "I'm feeling better."

"Really?" Mom asks.

"Really," I say, which was true until I got here. It's easier not to think about your looming mental health issues when you're busy obsessing on the number of times a guy's hand brushes your sleeve. Adam didn't say much else, but just having him near me was plenty distracting.

"You look flushed," Mom says. "You should have taken the car."

"Cold air is still fresh air." I shrug. "I should go up. I have homework, and I'm getting a late start."

"Do you want some dinner?" Mom asks, practically turning herself inside out to keep her eyes on me as I walk behind the couch. "There's pad thai on the counter."

"I'll grab some later," I say, taking the stairs two at a time.

I don't want to eat.

I want to figure this out. Julien disappearing, my bizarre Blake repulsion and inappropriate Adam obsession, this whole hot mess with Mags-all of it.

My bedroom door clicks softly shut behind me. I flip on the radio on my alarm clock. I learned that trick through a Psychology Today article. Music buys privacy. Many people (read: parents) are less likely to pop in on you if you've got a radio on.

Helpful tip for when you don't want to be checked on.

I flip open my laptop and cringe at the new background picture. Blake and I, arms linked around shoulders and waists.

It's disturbing. I used to spend hours daydreaming about our wedding, doodling his name in my notebooks. Now everything about the guy makes my skin crawl.

Add it to the list of everything else that makes absolutely no sense right now.

I open a spreadsheet and my Internet browser and then check Facebook and Twitter and a couple of other random sites. It's a little surreal seeing all the c.r.a.p I've blathered on about. I don't even read it at first. Not really. It's like getting into a cold pool. I inch my way around it, dipping my toe into profile pictures and dates.

From the looks of things, I was a busy Internet beaver all summer. Until somewhere in the middle of September. After that...total radio silence.

It's creepy, really, looking through posts and status updates. Almost like I'm stalking myself. Though, I've got to admit, this is not quite the James Bond experience I was hoping for. And if all of my posts are as boring as these, I really need to get a life. Or make one up, at least.

I scroll through my last month of activity again, looking for anything scary. Or h.e.l.l, even interesting.

08/02: Stalking my mailbox. Where are my scores?

08/06: Sixty days without coffee. I should get a spiffy coin.

08/17: Really? Still no scores! Gah.

08/20: New jeans + new boots = me actually looking forward to colder weather.

08/24: Blake bought me daisies. Just because. How sweet is that?

08/24: Okay, not that sweet. Blake got his SAT scores (ridiculously good). Flowers = preemptive apology for my potentially bad scores. If they ever show up.

08/25: They're here! They're here! They're here! And...I'm afraid to open them.

08/25: 2155 *dies*

09/09: Second week of senior year and still no coffee. Take that, doubters!

09/13: Wrapping up extra credit project number four. So far, so good. Let's hope university big shots agree.

09/18: I'm so excited about the party this weekend. I'll talk Blake into it, for sure!

I scroll over the list, feeling my face curdle like day-old milk. It's like I've been possessed by an academic pep rally. The last entry is the worst. When the h.e.l.l did I start saying c.r.a.p like "for sure"?

My cursor hovers over the two words, and I frown hard at it. I wouldn't say this. I don't care what's happened to me in the last six months. I can imagine myself saying some seriously stupid c.r.a.p but not that. Not in any universe I can think of.

It's just...wrong. It's like someone I don't know at all-a stranger. The same stranger who smiles out at me from dozens of pictures I don't remember taking? Maybe.

But why nothing since September? I'm not a junkie about these social things, but it's not like me to go more than a few days. A week, tops. Now I'm going off grid?

If there's an answer, I have no clue what it is or where to find it. I rub my hands over my face and glance at the clock on my laptop. I've been at this two hours, and all I've seen is forty new Facebook friends and a c.r.a.p-load of extra credit a.s.signments I've turned in. And by a lot, I mean an insane c.r.a.p-ton of a.s.signments. I stopped counting after twenty-six.

I flip to my school website and find a little more there. I'm officially hot s.h.i.t, academically speaking. I'm on the honor roll and in the peer tutoring club and blah, blah, blah. None of this tells me why I can't remember the last several months of my life. Or why I'm so convinced I have something to do with Julien Miller's disappearance. Other than the glaringly obvious fact that I need professional help.

G.o.d, I really need to let this go. I blow out a sigh and start shutting my programs down. I move to save one of my doc.u.ments when something catches my attention. Another file-a text file-in my list of recently accessed items.